Boston Latin School (BLS) occupies a unique space in American lore. Founded in 1635, it is the oldest public school in the country. Its alumni roster includes John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin (though he didn’t actually graduate), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Leonard Bernstein.

For decades, BLS has also been the epicenter of a fierce debate: Who gets to go there? More broadly, it’s part of a quintessentially American debate: How do we balance merit and equity?

The “Crisis” as a Catalyst

Before the pandemic, Boston used a “single citywide pool” for exam school admissions, with a stack ranking based on a score weighted 50% grades and 50% exam score. It was a pure “merit” system that ignored the vast socioeconomic disparities across our city. When COVID-19 hit, BPS followed the old political adage: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” They scrapped the old system and implemented a “tier” model, splitting the city into eight socioeconomic zones to ensure a more geographically diverse student body.

Unfortunately, the new policy was not based on real data analysis and overshot, making it mathematically impossible for many of the highest-scoring kids (from the wealthiest neighborhoods) to get accepted. The primary culprit was a “10 point bonus” awarded to any student attending a Title I school, regardless of what neighborhood that student lived in.

Two “Bad Words”

The terms “merit” and “equity” have become politically coded words. To the right, “equity” is code for “performative quotas and reverse racism.” To the left, “merit” is code for “preservation of systemic privilege.”

This type of binary absolutism is unfortunate. Both merit and equity are worthy ideals, and a healthy tension between them is, in many ways, what is unique about America. If “merit” ignores systemic barriers, it becomes a gatekeeper for privilege. If “equity” is pursued without rigor, it creates new, unintended forms of unfairness. Segments of the population that may have “privilege” can be overly punished by bad policy, which often drives them out of public systems entirely.

The Math Didn’t Add Up

I’ve designed and built software systems for most of my career, so I’m used to “thinking in algorithms.” I also admittedly had a vested interest in this policy as a parent of two school-age kids in Boston. When I analyzed the BPS data after the first admissions cycle, I was flabbergasted.

In “Tier 8”—the most affluent tier—this bonus created a mathematical ceiling. It became virtually impossible for a high-performing student at a non-Title I school (including my own kids) to get into BLS, even with a near-perfect GPA and test scores. To get in, you needed to score over 100—a mathematical impossibility without the bonus points. The policy had overshot.

My analysis showed that the “natural handicap” for students in these cohorts was actually closer to 1 or 2 points, not 10. By assigning 10 points, the city wasn’t leveling the playing field; it was tilting it so far in the other direction that it created a new form of exclusion. I later confirmed with those involved in the policy that the number was chosen simply because it was “a round number,” not because it reflected actual academic data.

From the School Committee to the Hallway

I wrote a memo detailing these findings and attended a public meeting to present it to the School Committee. I went in cynical, expecting my “pragmatic centrist” take to be ignored in favor of more politically coded rhetoric.

Instead, after I spoke, a committee member followed me into the hallway. “I really like your idea,” he said. “It makes a lot of sense.” We exchanged numbers. Over the next few months, we talked several times as the district began the work of actually analyzing the data to refine the policy.

And just a few months later, in early 2023, the School Committee voted to adopt my policy proposal.

The Result: Iteration Works

Governance is rarely fast, but it can be iterative. BPS has continued to publicly present the admissions data and allow for public comment. This year, after a few more admissions cycles, BPS made another set of changes that I believe effectively strike the merit/equity balance and will stand the test of time. Exam school admission seats are now allocated with the following approach:

  • The first 20% of seats at each exam school are now awarded to the highest-ranking students citywide, regardless of where they live. This protects the “merit” core of these historic institutions.
  • The remaining seats are distributed across four (simplified from eight) socioeconomic tiers (determined using ZIP-code-level census data).
  • No more bonus points. The data from the last three years showed that the tiered system itself provided enough of an equity lever without the need for additional, distorting “handicaps.”

Why This Matters

My takeaway from this saga is that public policy shouldn’t be a zero-sum game between merit and equity. It’s a design problem. Whether we are talking about Boston schools or, say, the federal tax code, the goal should be the same: create a system that is simple, rigorous, and acknowledges that a truly level playing field requires constant, data-driven adjustment.

We don’t need sycophancy or dogma. We just need to do the math.